More About Milk Sheep

(Page 3 of 3)

July/August 1975
By Roberta Kirberger  
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Unlike lambs, older sheep don't have to be pampered as much as the author of the feedback suggests. "A dietary supplement of calf's manna or grain with molasses"? Calf's manna costs about like porterhouse steak, folks. Holy fright, our girls supply their lambs and us with milk in exchange for half a pound of plain old corn and oats a day (plus all the grass they can stuff in). If you keep ewes worm-free, dry housed (which means clearing the muck out of their loafing barn), and healthy footed, they're pretty hardy old ladies. Oh, yes, and I go out and sit down with them and scratch their backs and chins and give them apples and carrots occasionally. A happy, healthy sheep is a twin producing, long lived sheep, I say!

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Meanwhile, our ewes are grannies many times over by now and we dried them up. early last time around to get another crop of lambs out of them with hopes of saving female young from our two best milkers before the dams are too old to produce.

In case you're wondering, we're not raising sheep as a moneymaking project. We sold our last wool crop at the Midwest Market for the going rate of a glorious 304 a pound, and the buyers didn't even look to see whether our product qualified for the premium price traditionally paid for Corriedale shearings. As far as we're concerned, the biggest benefit from the operation is the tasty home-grown meat we put in the freezer. Our lambs weigh 85 to 90 pounds at four months and including butchering, medical expenses, and store-bought feed, their meat costs 69¢ a pound. Try to find 69¢ lamb at the supermarket!

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